


See Me Burn With a Smile

by moon1ightknight



Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Dae falls in love with Jaewon but doesn't understand, Dae got hit with the trauma stick again, Fire, Implied/Referenced Rape/Noncon, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not betad, Pain, Suffering, Suicide, The scandals go too far, and hurt/no comfort, depending on which aspect you're lookign at, flames, hurt/little comfort, idk man, not edited, oh also drugs, scandals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:02:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28785378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon1ightknight/pseuds/moon1ightknight
Summary: Like anything in life, a flame needs to be fed to be kept alive. It needs heat to help it get started. It needs fuel to give it a reason to keep burning. It needs oxygen to have the space to grow.There’s a little flame inside every person, and in this sense the flame is no different than that of the one on a candle. It needs love to get it started. It needs passion to give it a reason to keep burning. And it needs trust to have a space to grow.When a flame is denied its three fundamental elements, it flickers out, and nothing but darkness is left to replace it.
Relationships: Ahn Jaewon | Wyld/Kim Daehyun
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	See Me Burn With a Smile

Like anything in life, a flame needs to be fed to be kept alive. It needs heat to help it get started. It needs fuel to give it a reason to keep burning. It needs oxygen to have the space to grow. 

There’s a little flame inside every person, and in this sense the flame is no different than that of the one on a candle. It needs love to get it started. It needs passion to give it a reason to keep burning. And it needs trust to have a space to grow. 

When a flame is denied its three fundamental elements, it flickers out, and nothing but darkness is left to replace it. 

The only issue is that when a candle’s flame is snuffed out, the effects are instantaneous. However, the way a human’s flame dies out is so

Much

S

l

o

w

e

r.

So slow that often one only notices the absence after it’s been cold for a long time. 

It’s no secret that Daehyun has always been the most observant one in Mayhem, always able to tell when the others needed a reason to smile or a distraction from life. 

Always, or so it had always been thought. Maybe he didn’t notice the way Jaewon’s flame slowly died out until it was nothing but the coldest ash. Maybe he let himself be manipulated into seeing nothing but the facade, the surface-deep happiness that was always present in Jaewon’s demeanor. Maybe, he was as clueless as the rest of Mayhem. 

It hurt less to believe that, at least. 

It was a lie.

If he hadn’t noticed, then he wouldn’t be able to go back through the years they’ve spent together and pinpoint every time the flame stuttered and shrank in Jaewon’s eyes. He wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the exact moment it flickered out, before the redhead ensured that it would never be lit again. 

He had noticed-

But it was easier to pretend that the flame extinguished so slowly that he couldn’t have possibly noticed it in time. 

It was easier, because if he acknowledged the truth, then he would have to acknowledge that he could have stopped his love’s death by just speaking up. 

***

When the two younger boys had first met, Daehyun could tell that Jaewon’s flame was nearly as bright as a forest fire, if not more so. Even though he seemingly tried to hide it (why? Fear of allowing himself to hope and believe?), Dae could see all the hope and excitement for life and Mayhem in Jaewon’s wide, doe-like eyes. 

Dae had never seen a flame as bright as his, and he was surprised as it grew even more. On the day of their debut, Jaewon shone the brightest that Dae had ever seen and would ever see from him: so bright, in fact, that he half-mused how it rivaled Jaewon’s freshly bright red hair in intensity. The younger boy wanted things to stay like this forever, feeling invincible and safe in the older’s light. 

It only took the blink of an eye for this safety and hope to completely disappear. 

When Jaewon returned to Seoul and showed up to the next dance practice, his first scandal in tow like a weight pulling his existence down, Dae thought for a moment that Jaewon’s flame had completely flickered out. Within the next moment, though, Jaewon flashed a smile so convincing that Dae assumed the moment of cold emptiness had been nothing but his imagination. 

***

Now that he thinks about it, there were numerous times that Dae had desperately tricked his mind into thinking that Jaewon’s cold, ashy remains of hope were still burning brightly. 

He should have paid more attention to these moments of vulnerability. He shouldn’t have tried to rationalize the situation in his mind until he was as blind as he had become.

***

When the four boys moved into the dorm, the breaks in Jaewon’s happy facade became so much more obvious and frequent to Dae. 

Whenever the red-headed male left the dorm for extended hours into the night, Dae was the only one who bothered to wait up for Jaewon after the first week. They never said it, and Dae never let himself think about it, but it was clear that Dongho and Minsoo had long since given up on Jaewon, given up on seeing anything other than Wyld. 

At first, Dae never said anything when Jaewon came home. He would simply lie awake in his bed, waiting until Jaewon had showered (which sometimes seemed to go on for hours) and climbed into bed. He would listen for his breathing to even out, signaling his finally falling into a peaceful sleep, before allowing himself to follow the older boy into sleep. 

The next morning, there would always be a headline with Wyld as the main star. 

***

The night that Dae had forgotten to pretend to be asleep when Jaewon came home, the two idols accidentally made eye contact through the dark. For a moment Jaewon froze, as if trying to decide whether to run away or pretend the eye contact never happened. What Jaewon seemed to choose, though, shocked Dae- instead of running or denying, he broke into deep, uncontrollable sobs that wracked his whole body. Dae practically leapt out of bed, nearly tripping over his sheets as he reached out to pull his friend into a tight embrace. 

The two never discussed it, never let their voices break the fragile silence, but at some point they reached a mutual understanding. Dae pulled Jaewon towards the bottom bunk, where they ended up falling asleep, limbs tangled together and soft yet pained smiles on both of their faces.

***

The next morning, Dae was more startled by the headline than he had ever been. Normally, the scandals were questionable at best. Jaewon grabbing some girl’s wrist, Jaewon standing behind some girl, some girl resting on his shoulder- nothing ever blatantly promiscuous without supplementary context. 

This time, though, Jaewon appeared to be full-on making out with a girl. She was sat on his lap at what looked to be a table in some night club, her hands cupping his face while his own wrapped around her waist. His face wasn’t visible, but his body was stiff. (All three members of Mayhem attributed this stiffness to a cool detachment, a lack of caring about what he was doing. Only now did Dae understand that it was anxiety and disgust.) 

It took Dae a long time to understand why this was the first scandal to have ever truly hurt him emotionally. 

***

Despite the pain that Dae didn’t understand, the two fell into a routine without having ever really discussed it. The night before any huge scandal was announced, Jaewon would come home with tear-stained cheeks and collapse into Dae’s arms, sobbing until he fell asleep. 

Lying there, Dae let himself be fooled into thinking that everything was okay- or, at least, that it eventually would be. He let himself believe that he was doing something to help Jaewon, and eventually he would be the boy he had been pre-debut again. 

He was wrong. 

***

On the night of Jaewon’s last scandal, Dae’s worldview had shattered and been reconstructed in some unrecognizable jumble of fragments, covered in sharp and painful edges. 

The two’s routine was broken that night. The rest of Mayhem had actually been awake, watching some drama that everyone had been ranting and raving about, when the front door clicked open. They all three turned to look, but Jaewon quickly walked past them towards the bathroom, intensely avoiding eye contact the entire time. As soon as Jaewon made it to the bathroom, they could hear him throwing up. 

Minsoo sighed, lowering the volume on the television but refusing to pause it for this. “Has he been drinking or something?” he asked, hardly making an attempt to hide the scorn in his voice. 

Dae didn’t say anything in response. He just got up and followed Jaewon’s path to the bathroom. 

When Dae gently shoved the door open, Jaewon was trembling by the toilet, his cheeks streaked with tears. His clothes were torn and his shirt only half buttoned up. Through the thin layer of fabric, Dae could see bruises littering the exposed skin underneath. Jaewon looked up at Dae as he entered, his eyes lidded and barely lucid. 

Dae reached out to touch Jaewon, and the red-headed boy flinched away so violently that he slammed his elbow on the shower door behind him. Perhaps the most concerning part was that he looked hardly phased by the pain. 

“Please- please, don’t,” Jaewon all but whispered, voice cracking with fear. His eyes showed no hint of recognition towards Dae. 

Quietly, Dae sat on the floor across the bathroom from Jaewon. He didn’t make any move to touch the boy, didn’t try to disrupt whatever fragile peace was there, but he stayed as still as a statue until Jaewon slowly seemed to become clearer minded and more lucid. This process seemed to take hours. Maybe it did. Dae didn’t dare take out his phone to check the time. 

Eventually, Jaewon was the one that broke the silence with a half-coherent mumble. “I- I didn’t want it, Dae-ah. I didn’t want it but… but I couldn’t make myself do anything- anything to stop it…” 

Dae didn’t know how to reply. He wasn’t sure if he was physically capable of speaking in that moment. So, instead, he just guided Jaewon to his feet and to their room. He gently helped Jaewon into clean pajamas, the process painstakingly slow as he paused at every hint of panic in Jaewon’s eyes. Once they were finished, Jaewon wordlessly climbed into his own bed. 

They didn’t fall asleep together that night, and they never did again following that. 

***

Over the course of the next three days, Jaewon hardly got out of bed. He would emerge from their room for the necessities, using the restroom and forcing approximately half a meal down per day. On the fourth day of him seemingly panning to skip dance practice again, Minsoo angrily stormed into the maknae line’s bedroom. 

Apparently, he chose to go in guns blazing. 

“What the hell is wrong with you, Jaewon?” Minsoo shouted. His voice could be heard from all over the dorm, and Dae quickly joined the two with a deep anxiety building in his stomach. 

Minsoo didn’t wait for Jaewon to be able to explain before continuing. 

If Dae’s being honest, he did his best to forget the horrible words Minsoo relentlessly threw at Jaewon. They all did, really. But Daehyun still knew the basics of what was said. 

He knew that Minsoo asked Jaewon why he was in Mayhem. He asked why he continued to knowingly drag them down when he could just leave instead, since he obviously didn’t care about anything other than girls and drinking. He asked why Jaewon pretended when he obviously never cared about Mayhem in the first place. 

Daehyun knew every word of it was wrong. That Minsoo had the whole situation framed wrong. 

He knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak up about it. 

Eventually, Dongho walked into the room to investigate all the yelling. 

Eventually, Dongho ended up telling Jaewon that maybe it would be best for him to leave for now. 

Eventually, Jaewon looked at Dae and never looked away before speaking a shattered apology to the group. 

Eventually, Jaewon got dressed and left the dorm. 

Eventually, Dae learned that he would never see Jaewon again after that night. 

***

It was almost as if the Universe craved one final act of cruelty to be remembered by, and it picked Dae out as its prey. The next morning, before Minsoo or Dongho could wake him up- before they hardly even knew what was going on themselves- Dae was woken up by an incessant buzzing. He grabbed his phone, and through the stream of Twitter notifications on his screen is how he found out. 

Dae stared at the headline disbelievingly. 

**_K-Pop Idol And Known Womanizer Wyld Found Dead in Suspected Suicide._ **

Reading the headline, Dae was struck with a horrible realization: while the rest of the world thought they were just witnessing Jaewon’s flame finally flickering out, Dae knew that really they’d just discovered the cold ashes of a long-since extinguished wildfire. 

***

(Some may say that the moment Jaewon’s death hit the news was the moment Dae’s own flame started its path towards quickly extinguishing itself as well.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not the happiest with this, I worry my voice was pretty weak in this and I could have made it a lot more painful and detailed if I spent more time on it, but I'm just really excited to be able to post something again so I kind of rushed it,,,


End file.
